The former Hüsker Dü frontman riffs on turning down $400,00 checks, writing for World Championship Wrestling, and the surprising details of his new memoir

Bob Mould is a lot milder now than he was in the '80s. He's also healthier. And openly gay. In his new memoir, See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, he writes about growing up with an alcoholic father in desolate upstate New York, his drug-addled days when he looked gruffer and meaner than any club bouncer on stage with his legendary band Hüsker Dü, and the group's eventual, hair-tearingly mourned breakup. If this all sounds like the typical rockers-of-a-certain-age autobiography fare, it is, but Mould's story doesn't feel slapdash or flimsy. Weaved into the chronology of his career are confessional details about his severely troubled personal life—his long-gestating coming out, complicated relationships with boyfriends, and existence as a self-titled "miserablist." GQ sat down with Mould when he was in New York on the first leg of his book tour.

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GQ: A lot of the book is about keeping your homosexuality under wraps in the early '80s when Hüsker Dü was blowing up. Do you think had you been openly gay, it would have changed how you were received?Bob Mould: There's no way to know for sure. At the time, there were only a few people doing the heavy lifting as far as being out musicians. Tom Robinson, Jimmy Somerville, Boy George to some degree, as time went on, more so. I think people might have looked at it differently. There were a lot of gay musicians in the punk rock scene in the '80s. There were a few that were fairly out, there were some that weren't out at all, and—you know what? At the time, my perception of being gay, and what the gay community was, you know—I talk about it this in the book—was very, very closed and I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. So had I been out, I don't know if I would have been a very good spokesperson, especially like Jimmy Somerville was. I may have done more harm than good personally. The flip side is it might have given gay people at the time an example, allowed them to feel more comfortable. In terms of our stuff, I always wanted the songs to stay gender neutral because music is supposed to be universal. Having said that, when Zen Arcade came out and people heard songs like "The Biggest Lie," other gay musicians knew immediately what was going on. Like the guys from Pansy Division commented years later, "Oh, the second we heard that song we knew you were gay." So it's like well, then, did I really have to say it? It's a complicated thing.

GQ: Do you think there's an imperative to be a very open advocate?Bob Mould: No. No. I think it's a matter of one's comfort with being a spokesperson for the community, and if you really feel like that's your reason for making your art, definitely. Had I been out sooner, would things have been different? Yeah. I don't know which way, but definitely things would have been different. The music may have been branded specifically gay which might have, at that time, hindered the audience, or the scope, or the reach. And then we got into the '90s where there was lesbian chic, and it started to be OK, and then there was "Will & Grace" and now kids come out at 10 on Facebook. So you know, to say what is understood and normal now compared to 30 years ago...culturally, it's a gigantic, gigantic difference. And even from the '80s—think about being an out musician in '84, and being an out musician in '57.

GQ: Huge difference.Bob Mould: Yeah, you know, the good news is we've come an incredible distance, and it's sort of exponential as time goes on. But, wow. I never even thought about if you were in the early '60s and you were a gay musician, what would you do?

GQ: Marry someone.Bob Mould: Yeah, I mean... and hope for the best. Hope you don't get found out. It's really, it's just pretty astonishing to think about how far the LGBT—which wasn't even a community then—has come. It was just like "the gays." The gays who were dying. The gays who were morally corrupt, in the '80s. Anita Bryant, Ronald Reagan and all these people that, you know, made life really, really hard for everyone.

GQ: There are many instances in the book describing when you hole up to make a record and it's a very intense experience—an emotional purge. You use the word catharsis. In that regard, what was writing a memoir like?Bob Mould: The book was a lot more emotional than any record. Actually, to me the book ended up being really cathartic. I should have known. I didn't see it coming. I had never done it, so I was naïve to the whole process. And again, I was lucky to have Michael Azerrad as a collaborator and a coach, there's no way I could have done this book without him. Just especially writing about myself. There's no perspective. And Michael's very familiar with the work, and when he got to see my personality and how I think about things, I think he was able to find a way to get the stories out. Not so much the stories like "Oh, in 1983 this happened" but the story. He was able to extract that. Seeing the anecdotes, and the tales. Especially "family of origin." Once he saw that, then he was like "OK, wait a minute, there's a lot going on here."

GQ: How long did it take you to write it?Bob Mould: Two and a half years.